Customers’ security fears for their data and their money represents the biggest threat to Open Banking and to increased competition in Banking

On the back of recent media article on HSBC voice recognition being successfully navigated by a BBC reporter and the Barclays boss being duped by a person purporting to be his chairman it is no wonder that there are heightened security fears around our data and our money.

These fears are unlikely to have been helped by today’s story about hackers hitting Russian bank customers, especially as had they not been caught, with further targets had already having been identified.

Whilst most of us relish the convenience of our smartphones and our tablets there very convenience seems to represent a weak link in our defences. The more we use them, particularly in public places connected to public Wi-Fi, then the more risk we expose ourselves to via phishing and leaving a data trail for criminals to exploit.

The challenge will be for banks and operating systems providers to improve their ability to provide the consumers with improved protection and, also more generally, go on a communication offensive to put fears to rest.

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Russian cyber criminals used malware planted on Android mobile devices to steal from domestic bank customers and were planning to target European lenders before their arrest, investigators and sources with knowledge of the case told Reuters.Their campaign raised a relatively small sum by cyber-crime standards - more than 50 million roubles ($892,000) - but they had also obtained more sophisticated malicious software for a modest monthly fee to go after the clients of banks in France and possibly a range of other western nations.